Manipulation - The art of Control (Part 2) - Day 419

A comment I received on my previous blog:

 

I do not see the point of manipulation and control in saying: "Where do you want to park the car? It's just a question to coordinate the intentions of you both.

I see manipulation and control rather in the pushy way of saying: "please park in the under parking because…"

 

Perspective:

 

What I have shared yesterday was the point I've seen within and as myself in that specific moment where I had a specific agenda of where to park and I wasn't direct about it within the way I structured the question. My starting point was not to coordinate the intentions of us both, my starting point was to control the event to suite a desirable outcome that I've have schemed in my mind without sharing my intention with another.

 

The manipulation is from the perspective of - I knew specifically where I wanted to park when I asked her where she planned to park and I didn't want her to give me an answer that won't suite my desirable outcome so I continued with the manipulation by using specific voice tonality when I said that I need to buy a fabric softener because I knew that she will calculate the route and see that the underground parking is the best place to park. In neither of these 2 statements was I direct and said - 'in terms of what we need to do in the mall, it is best to park in the underground parking" but I rather structured my statements/questions in a way that indirectly the outcome would be what I wanted it to be.

 

The point you brought up of  "coordinate the intention of both" is a cool solution of moving from Controlling and event  to mutual agreement, and that is done by being direct with one another from the starting point of really considering each other, considering what each have to say and accordingly, both make a decision that is best for both.

 

So remember, this is an example that I've seen myself participating with and I see it more and more within how I'm communicating with others. I see it in movies, in the media, as well as memories that came up of past relationships and friendships - I was never direct in my communication and I always used manipulation to get what I wanted.

 

For myself, I was taught as child to not be direct in communication with others because seemingly, being direct is rude in our culture. As a derivative, I was basically indirectly  taught to manipulate from the perspective of learning to get what I wanted by not being direct about it.

If one would look in self-honesty and investigate the point, one would find that in many cases where we ask for instance:  "Would you mind…"; "What would you prefer?"; "What do you want?"; "I don't care, what ever you decide" -  in our secret mind we know exactly what we want, we want a specific outcome but we don't want others to think that we have a secret agenda because they might judge us or disagree with us and so we first 'test the water' so to speak, assess the dynamic and then decide how to approach the point to get to our desirable outcome.

It is rarely that we are asking these question from a genuine starting point where we consider the other before we consider ourselves and/or when we genuinely don't have a specific preference our a specific outcome in mind. It is seldom that we don't have a specific agenda that we will either push or let it go, dependent on the other response to our indirect question and the nature of our relationships with another and who we are within that relationship.

 

So yes, I agree - looking at the specific example that I shared - a practical correction would be to speak directly and share my intention to coordinate it with the other intentions and accordingly, both walk the practical application of what is best for both in that specific moment.